Lost In Translation
by Milk and Glass
Summary: Mark/Erica Hahn pairing. Blonde, blue-eyed, German-born Erica Hahn and her love for cardiothoracics. A little bit of backstory on Hahn and what makes her tick and how Mark Sloan eventually fits into her life. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

She boards the plane, a tiny golden-braided, blue-eyed child clinging to her mother's hand. The steps are a little too high; she stumbles against the top one and bruises her shins against the sharp edges, but she's hauled up in an instant and she doesn't have time to cry as they're shown to their seats. Her brother stares moodily out the window; he's ten, and doesn't understand why they have to leave Germany for the States. She's five, and doesn't really understand the difference. She clambers across her brother, who thumps her angrily on the back, and stares out the window as the plane starts to taxi to the end of the runway.

Her mother pulls her back gently and buckles her seatbelt. As the plane takes off, her ears pop and the odd dichotomy of her stomach rising and the view of her mother's tears causes her to gag. The last memory of Germany she has is a clouded-over bird's eye view of the land over the edge of an air-sickness bag, and the only thought she has is that if America's supposed to be so much better, why does it make her tummy feel so sick?

"And I don't want to see any mistakes in there, do you hear me? This harvest shouldn't take more than an hour, and God help St. Mary's if that heart's damaged by the time I get there."

She stalks down the hall, made conspicuous by her red scrubs, and takes a minute to twist her thick blonde hair up in a bun to fit under her scrub cap. It might be patterned gaily, but she's all business, and her interns scrabble madly out of the way as she pulls on a coat and makes her way up to the helicopter bay at the top of Mercy West.

The flight, as always, makes her feel sick, but she slugs water and pops an all-natural ginger remedy in lieu of drowsy Dramamine. Her face is set straight ahead; the resident she takes with her fiddles with a BlackBerry while she keeps her hands totally still.

It's rumoured that she's not even human. A cardiothoracic surgeon, she knows what makes the heart tick.

She knows even better what makes it feel.

"You must learn to speak English, Erika. You'll learn that in school. Emil can help you."

Emil, who's taken a grand total of about a year's worth of ESL classes, scowls. "English is stupid."

Erika pulls on one of her braids. "I don't want to go to school." She's only been to half a year of kindergarten in Germany, and she didn't like to be so far away from her mother. "I want to stay home with you."

"You've got to go to school. It's the same as in Germany – it's the law." Her mother, looking tired and sad, kisses the top of her head. "Go with Emil."

Emil walks far ahead of Erika, who has to hurry to keep up with him and ends up falling on the sidewalk. "Emil, wait for me!"

She gets up and looks down at her pants, which are now ripped at the knee, and begins to cry. "Come back!"

He turns. "Hurry up."

"I fell." She sniffles and tries not to let him see her cry. He comes over and pulls up her pant leg roughly. "It's just a scratch. Come on. We'll be late and then you'll have to sit in the headmaster's office all day. He'll probably not let you go to the toilet, either."

"That's not true." She frowns at him and brushes her tears away with a dusty, skinned hand. "He has to let you go to the toilet."

"Not in America. It's got different rules. And they hate German kids."

Erika's blue eyes widen. "Why?"

"Because they're not good enough to stay in Germany." He grabs her hand and pulls her along, not caring that he's hurting the skinned palm.

When they get to school, Emil dumps her at the kindergarten's door. "Be right here after school or you can find your own way home." With that, he leaves.

She pokes her head in. It looks like German kindergarten, and the kids look friendly. She starts to make for the jungle gym in the corner when she's stopped by the teacher.

"What's your name?"

She doesn't really know what the teacher is asking, and blinks in confusion. "Was tat?"

The teacher suddenly looks enlightened. "You're Erika Hahn."

"Ja." Erika nods shyly and allows herself to be led to the circle. The morning goes well, until she can't figure out how to ask to go to the bathroom. Noticing that it seems to be attached to the classroom, she simply gets up and walks to the door. The teacher calls her, and she turns around.

"Where are you going?" The teacher's voice is a little sharper than she intended it, and the little girl points at the door, her face falling when the teacher shakes her head and points at the floor. "Come and sit down, please."

Erika still has to go, but she sits back down and tries to focus on the teacher. But she's new and little and scared, and she can't understand a word that's being said, and despite all of her resolve not to cry, she ends up sniffling into her skinned palms at the back of the circle.

When she gets home, she slumps against her mother's embrace and cries. Above her, her cheek against the soft blonde hair, her mother cries, too.

"Richard, you're offering me a job at Seattle Grace?"

"Burke left. We need a skilled cardiothoracic surgeon to take over. You're the best, after him."

"After him," Erica snorts, tossing her hair and smoothing down her white coat over her skirt. "Well, what are the terms?"

"Benefits, a competitive pay package, the chance to work at one of the best hospitals on the West Coast?"

Erica laughs. "Okay. I accept." She holds out her hand and Richard shakes it, surprised at its firmness. "But only if you admit that I am the best cardiothoracic surgeon on the West Coast."

Richard laughs. "You're certainly one of the most hard-headed."

Erica's face sets determinedly. "Yes, I know."

"I'm changing the spelling of my name."

"Why?" Emil, fifteen years old, is sprawled on the couch, a book in his hand. "There's nothing wrong with the spelling of your name."

"Except that everyone spells it wrong." Erika's annoyed and she tugs at her braids, a nervous habit. "I just want to be normal."

"You are normal." Emil's voice is totally bored, and Erika throws a pillow at him. "Emil!"

"What do you want me to say?" His voice is cracking, in the midst of puberty, and he's looking more and more like their father every day. Erika sighs.

"I wonder what it would have been like if we'd stayed."

Emil's face hardens. "We couldn't have stayed. Mama couldn't have stood it."

They're speaking German, but it's American-accented, and neither can really remember the "old country". However, Erika can remember the funeral vaguely, although she can't remember the death. She's been told several times that it was a cardiac arrest that killed her father, but what that is, she doesn't know.

She vows to find out. It's got to be something awful, to make them move away from the home that they were all comfortable in.

"Damn it! Will you hand me the paddles?" Her hand clenches around the paddles as she shocks the heart once, twice. It stays still, cold and pale pink under the harsh surgical lights, and her eyes harden as she shakes her head. "Time of death, 15:47. Shit."

She pulls off her gloves and stalks out of the OR, leaving Izzie Stevens to fill out the charts, and runs smack into Mark Sloan. "What do you want?"

They've been flirting on and off; she sort of likes his smile and he really likes her figure. His eyes, even now, are tracing over her face and her curves. She almost smacks him. "Listen, bozo, I don't have time for your bullshit right now. I just lost a patient."

His face immediately changes. "I'm sorry, Dr. Hahn."

"Yeah, well." She pushes past him. "It happens."

He puts a hand on her shoulder and she looks him directly in the eyes. "Can I help you?"

"No, but maybe I can help you."

"I highly doubt it," she replies, pushing his hand away. "Just because you're the hospital's resident manwhore doesn't mean that I have to give into your misplaced charms. Kindly turn your attentions to someone else. Maybe your pretty boy friend?" She smirks at him and he smirks back.

"You can still be a feminist and like men, you know."

"What?" Her mouth opens in astonishment and he gives her a sexy grin. "Just saying."

She laughs, feeling the pressure of the day behind her eyes. "Okay, point for you, Dr. Sloan."

"I don't understand why you want to be a doctor, Erika."

To tell the truth, Erica doesn't know, either. She's got college applications spread out in front of her on the kitchen table and she knows she has the marks to get into any of them. "I just think I should."

"It's a good idea, but you're a woman. You'd never be able to balance that kind of career with a child."

Erica sighs in exasperation. "Maybe I don't want to get married and have children, Mama."

"You'd be missing out on one of the best experiences of your life." Her mother sighs. "I somehow think this is my fault. You and Emil never had a good family life."

"You did your best, Mama." Erica snakes her hand across the table. "I just don't want that."

"I should be proud, I guess. I raised an independent woman."

"You did, and I hope you are proud." Erica's blue eyes sparkle at her mother, and they embrace.

When she crosses the stage, a full-fledged MD, her mother waves from the audience, from her wheelchair. She's got congestive heart failure and Erica finally found her reason for being a doctor during the last year of medical school.

For now, she doesn't see a sick woman that she desperately longs to save.

For now, all she sees is her mother's bright smile.

Curled in the on-call room, she curses this day where all her patients die and she has to deal with cheeky interns. She even had a patient rebuke her for being so cold. It seems that you can't be both in this profession – you can't be too soft and you can't be too hard. But it's the way she is, and she doesn't apologize for it. She does, however, feel it as deeply as she used to as a child – and sometimes, even the hardest people cry.

She's not exactly sobbing into her pillow; but she's letting the tears fall down her cheeks and soak into the rough sheets. It's days like these that she really feels her parents' deaths; she wonders if she cares too much about the heart, too much that her own has atrophied.

The door opens and Mark Sloan comes in, but he sees her on the bed and turns to leave quickly. Quickly, that is, until he sees her tears.

"Are you okay?"

"Clearly, I'm not." She tugs on her hair; no longer in braids, but it's a nervous habit she's never been able to break. "It's just been a shitty day." She tries to laugh a bit, but he sees through it and sits on the bed beside her.

"Yeah, I get that." For now, he's not a manwhore, or flirting. He's just another doctor and he gets it, and she sighs as he puts a hand on her shoulder. "Sorry it's been shitty."

"Thanks."

Without really thinking about it, she cuddles closer to him, and he puts out a hand to touch her hair. "I'm not a manwhore. Not really."

"Yes, you are." She chuckles a little, her voice hiccupy, and he grins back.

When the kiss happens, it's soft, and non-aggressive, but it's short because she pulls away and turns her head back in the pillow, ashamed of herself. Ashamed of giving in? She doesn't know.

He continues to sit on the edge of the bed and stroke her hair. She doesn't respond.

But she doesn't tell him to go, either.


	2. Chapter 2

She sits, her ankles crossed, on the pier by the ocean and smiles randomly at a thought passing through her six-year-old mind. The cool air raises goosebumps on her bare arms and she huddles further into her pink T-shirt; she looks down at her cuffed jeans and her untied shoes and has a little wriggle of excitement; they're going out to McDonald's for supper and she's only been once. She got a spelling test back and only got one wrong; for being barely one year in America, she's doing really well.

And yet, she's different than the other kids – she stands slightly apart and she's got a slight German accent, and when she looks at you, her blue eyes consider you carefully; she sizes you up; she takes your words into her regard and turns them over, then forms a careful answer. It's the way any child learning a new language would, but she does it in a methodical way that makes you think you're talking to an adult and not a mere child.

Then, she smiles and you realize, when you look at her gapped teeth and her rosy cheeks, that she's a regular six-year-old who loves all the things little girls love, and maybe you're mistaken about what you've seen.

It doesn't occur to the average observer than Erika Hahn can be both – both a child and an adult. Death's like that. Death touches you that way.

"Pretty and Prettier?" Her voice echoes down the hall and Mark and Derek turn; they're almost identical in blue scrubs with blue eyes and the same amount of salt-and-pepper hair; they're even almost the same height. But Derek's smile is polite and Mark's is just lascivious.

"What can I do for you, Dr. Hahn?" Derek's voice is smooth, oily, and she just puts up a hand.

"Please. The charm is just disgusting. Anyway, everyone knows that you're still chasing Meredith Grey." She flips her long hair over her shoulder. "I'm taking OR Two today. So, if one of you is in there, clear it. I've got an emergent triple by-pass surgery happening in about an hour."

Mark frowns. "There's protocol for that, you know."

"And I've already cleared it with the Chief, so stop getting your panties in a twist." She sweeps past him and he catches a whiff of expensive perfume. "This shouldn't take long. The patient's straightforward."

"Cardio before Plastics," he mutters and she grins. "That's right."

He watches her legs move under her white coat and sighs as she walks away. Derek rolls his eyes. "You're not seriously still on about her?"

Mark opens his mouth to reply and then watches her point at Cristina Yang and roll her eyes.

It's not that he's on about her. It's that he can't stop thinking about her. Because women who take charge are more than attractive and good in bed (he thinks of Addison briefly; he lets the memory go).

She flips her hair again and casts a blue gaze down the hallway, clutching CT results and in the middle of her day and he sighs again.

"I'm not on about her, Derek. It's not a crush."

"What is it, then?"

"It's a little more than admiration."

Erika trails her hands in the tide pool; she comes up with a starfish and smiles. "Look, Emil. I have a star."

"It's a starfish," he corrects grumpily, but comes over to look at it. He puts out a finger to poke at it, but Erika cups her hand over the fish.

"Don't. Leave it alone." She looks tenderly at it and Emil snorts. "It's got a broken leg."

"It does?" She looks down at it and realizes that one of its legs is missing. Not really one to break down over these things, she puts it back in the pool and then sits back on the rock. She says nothing, but the tears are in her eyes.

"What's wrong, liebling?" Erika's mother comes up beside her; she puts a hand on the little shoulder and isn't surprised when the golden-braided child turns her face into her mother's embrace.

"It's broken," comes the muffled little voice, and Mrs. Hahn looks down into the pool. "The starfish?"

"It's missing a leg." Erika pokes her head up and meets her mother's eyes, so much like her own. "I broke it."

Mrs. Hahn smiles; she strokes back the windblown strands coming loose from her child's braids and searches for words to explain. "You didn't break it. You didn't hurt it." In a few quick words of German, she explains to the little girl that starfish occasionally lose legs when they feel threatened.

"You scared him, that's all, liebe Erika." She kisses the red little cheeks. "He's strong. He can take care of himself – he'll grow a new leg."

"He'll be fine? The star will be fine?"

"Starfish. He'll be just fine."

"Okay. Stevens, hand me the forceps." Erica's busy with her bypass. "Why do people do this to themselves? This is just a mess."

What seemed to be a fairly straightforward surgery has now turned into more than she bargained for. And this man has a family. He's got a family, and she's got the power in her hands, she's holding his heart, for God's sake. And it's not looking good.

Izzie Stevens hands her tools; she keeps quiet and watches Hahn's dexterous hands and the bright points of the forceps wink in and out of the body cavity, and then Erica finishes; she nods at the nurse to wipe her forehead and sighs. "Turn off bypass."

The heart remains still. She curses under her breath. "Give me the paddles." She shocks the heart; once; twice; she can feel the current of electricity running down from her hands past the heart and into the spirit of this man. She tunes out the gallery; she tunes out the people in the room. It matters because she has to fix him. She's seen a lot of people die but this is not something she's willing to compromise on, today. This man has a son and a wife.

She'd stood in his room three hours before. "So, essentially, we'll clear the blockage in the heart and you should be fine, Mr. O'Reilly."

The son is knocking his hand gently against the fake wooden bed tray; he twirls a straw wrapper close to his face, almost imperceptibly, and then he fixes her with a pair of dark eyes that knows better than she about things she never even thought of. Immediately, she's struck; this boy is autistic, but he's much more than that.

He lays a hand on his father's heart; nods once, twice. "Heart."

The mother nods tiredly. "Sorry. Okay, well, let's get on with it." The boy doesn't take his eyes from Erica's, and she's starting to get uncomfortable. She shifts her weight, but she doesn't break his gaze. He nods again.

"Heart. It's broken."

Without even thinking, Erica's voice drops from her confident attending orders-booming banter to a softer, paler tone; something that she's almost forgotten; something that belongs to a younger time when surgery wasn't a way to distinguish herself.

"It's broken now. But I will fix it."

The boy finally breaks her gaze and looks down at his hand; at the way the fingers web slightly on the dark-brown wood.

"Fix it. Fix the heart."

And that's why she can't let this man die.

The heart bucks slightly under the paddles; it shivers into life and Erica casts a gaze at the monitor. "Normal sinus rhythm –" she manages, before the heart rate falls and she's stuck holding a heart that's not willing to keep beating.

When ten minutes pass, she's done. She's unconsciously made a promise, but she just can't. This isn't going to regenerate. She can't get the heart started.

The whole OR falls silent; she snaps off her bloody gloves and casts a look at the clock. "Time of death, 10:47 AM."

Then, she leaves, and doesn't look back.

Pushing her way through crowds of people in the front of the hospital, she manages to get out the main doors before the emotions overwhelm her. She doesn't know what's wrong with her; at Mercy West, she was never like this. She lost patients and she moved on. But lately, it's been different. She's been affected by other factors. And she doesn't like who she's become. She doesn't like being softer than she appears.

She sits for a long time on the rock by the reflecting lake, about fifty yards from the hospital, and stares out over the water unseeingly. It was that kid – it was his gaze; she can't forget it.

When he appears on the grass, she turns her back. "Go away, Sloan."

"I was looking to see if the OR was clear and they told me you'd lost your patient." His hair is blown back slightly by the soft wind; he squints his eyes against the sun. "I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry." She kicks at a clod of dirt and fixes him with her steely blue gaze. "You're not sorry, so don't say it."

"Was it someone you knew?" His voice is gentler; it's still the strident Mark tones but it's softer and she responds.

"The human body doesn't regenerate itself. It bothers me."

He's quiet for a moment; this practitioner of plastics and she realizes that if anyone knows that, it's him. "There are miracles," he tries, but she shakes her head.

"When I was a kid I learned about starfish. Ever since I've just tried to be more careful."

"Starfish?" He looks confused, and then it dawns on him. "If they lose legs, they grow them back."

"Yeah. Essentially. Why am I telling you this?" She brushes her blonde hair back and he gets a visual of a tiny, blonde little girl before the action is completed.

"When I was a kid I used to cut worms in half," he offered. "Because I never believed Derek when he told me they'd grow back. And he dared me to. And then the worm bled, and I watched for the miracle, and it didn't happen, and the worm died."

She smiles, slightly. "Did you cry?"

"Well, I was seven, so, yes." He says it like it's a matter-of-fact thing; like all seven-year-old boys would cry at the thought of killing a worm, but her smile grows wider and it's not mocking; it's just sweet.

"Mark Sloan, worm-killer."

"Erica Hahn, starfish-maimer." They laugh and he puts a hand on her shoulder, just lightly. "You're so tough."

"I'm just trying to do my job." Her voice holds a warning and he knows he should take his hand away, but he doesn't – he moves closer; he puts both hands on her shoulders and she stiffens.

But it's too late; he kisses her – and it's more to see what she'll do, more than that he wants to. She recoils slightly, but her hands come up to rest on his shoulders and they kiss in the morning light; the sun falls on her blonde hair and the streaks of silver in his, and when they break apart, she's smiling a little.

"You've wanted to do that for awhile."

"Yeah." He admits it, why not? She laughs – it's a belly laugh, not anything snarky.

She casts a look at the hospital and he follows her up, holding her hand, but just at the last, she withdraws it. She becomes the surgeon with the hard gaze; she remembers her duties and the fact that she has to tell an autistic boy that his father died.

And it's like the girl in the light doesn't exist; it's like she never told him anything about herself. But she smiles suddenly and he nods; it's not completely lost.

She clacks away; her back is straight, and he ducks his head and grins.

He's not the boy who cried over worms anymore than she's the girl who cried over starfish, anymore.

But the core is there – she's not so different from him, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

If you ask her, she doesn't remember. She doesn't remember the funeral or the death, really – it was in the middle of the night and she was awakened from a dead sleep to be told that Papa was gone; his heart had stopped. To a six-year-old, the fact that a heart no longer beats and that someone isn't going to wake up is scary; she was consumed with a heavy feeling in her stomach and before she could tell anyone, she threw up all over her covers and her mother, already grief-stricken, had to deal with soiled comforters and an upset daughter as well as a dead husband.

But she was there; she held her mother's hand as they lowered the casket into the grave and the rain wouldn't stop falling. When she thinks of it, she remembers the feeling of rain trickling down the bare part of her neck between her braids and the way that she shivered so hard that she felt like she was going to explode. But she doesn't remember what was said about Papa, or any of the food afterwards, or even when she fell asleep with her head in her mother's lap as they sat on the sofa in their home and relatives came up to say their condolences.

Just because you don't remember doesn't mean it doesn't affect you. Erika had run down the stairs two days after Papa's death and stopped dead on the landing, bursting into tears. She felt a total loss of control; her legs weakened and she wet her pants – quite unusual for a little girl who hadn't had an accident since she was about three. Instead of getting angry, though, her mother had helped her change, held her close, and then decided that night that moving to America would be a better choice for everyone.

Looking back on it now, Erica can only determine that her mother was right.

They flirt snarkily in the scrub room and they sometimes hang out in Erica's office, but Mark Sloan is no closer to Erica Hahn than he's ever been. The problem with that? He's frustrated. Derek Shepherd is even more frustrated because Mark won't shut up about Erica.

"Mark. Please," Derek finally protests, throwing up his hands. "I don't care, okay? I don't find her that attractive. Frankly, she's kind of scary."

Mark frowns at Derek. "You never were very smart."

"At least I have the sense to stay away from women who are clearly rejecting me."

"Oh, really? Do we have to bring up Meredith?" Mark's eyebrows shoot into his hairline and Derek clears his throat.

"Touche."

Erica comes into the attendings' sitting room and flops down on the couch. "God, what is this, hell month? This is the fourth patient I've lost in two weeks."

Mark leans back in his chair. "Should have gone into Plastics."

"I don't have the necessary temperament," Erica drawls back and then gives Derek a wicked grin when Mark asks, "What's that supposed to mean?"

Derek takes a sip of coffee. "We're heading to Joe's after my surgery at four. You up for it?"

Erica shoots a look at Mark, who's carefully examining a chart. "Yeah, I'll come. You coming over there, Pretty?"

"Well, I can't leave Prettier all by himself, now," he says back, but his eyes meet hers and they sparkle, and she can't help but smile back.

He's rubbing his arms up and down in a tired fashion and sitting on the edge of the on-call room bed. It's been a long day and he's past the point of tired – he's at the point where simply staring at the wall is more restful than trying to sleep. When she comes in, he doesn't even look up, even though he's imagined this scenario more than once.

She shucks off her white coat and sits down beside him in her red scrubs, saying nothing. He casts a look at her, but sees only long blonde hair obscuring her profile and any expression on her face.

He is surprised when she kisses him and when she slides her hands under his scrub shirt and over his chest – so surprised, in fact, that he actually does nothing for a few moments while she runs her tongue down his neck and nuzzles him, her hair falling softly and coldly over the exposed part of his shoulder.

She pulls away. "Do you want this or not?"

He's gobsmacked. "Do you?"

"Well, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here, would I?"

He has no idea what any of this is about, but he shucks off his shirt and expertly unsnaps her bra. They help each other undress, he undoes the string of her scrub pants and she pushes his hands below her panty's waistline.

When the sex happens, it's fast – she bites him on the neck and digs her nails into his back, and he rolls to the side so that she can get on top.

It's over almost before he has a chance to process that he's actually sleeping with Erica Hahn. She immediately rolls off him and gets her clothes.

He's so tired that he doesn't say anything as she gets up to leave, but she fixes him with a blue stare before leaving the room.

"Say anything and I'll make your life hell."

With that, she leaves.

Erika is coughing – she's coughing so hard and so harshly that her hands are fisting her covers and Emil is groaning.

"Shh! We have to go to school in the morning!"

Immediately, there's a cool hand on her forehead – immediately, Erika is encouraged to sip from a glass of cool tap water, and her coughing eases. "Liebe Erika, my poor little one," her mother croons, and Erika cuddles into her warm embrace.

"Emil." He looks up at his mother's tone and then sighs. "Do I have to move to the couch?"

"No. I'll take Erika in my room."

Safely tucked into her mother's bed, Erika tries to put her finger on the nightmare that happened before her chest burned too much to keep sleeping. "I dreamed about Papa."

"You did?" Her mother strokes back the tumbled blonde hair and Erika cuddles closer. "He was already dead."

"Liebling, do you understand what that means?" Mrs. Hahn is concerned; she was devastated but she feels like she hasn't given her children the support they needed to get through the death of their father.

"He's never coming back. There's nothing we can do."

Mrs. Hahn cuddles her baby closer to her. "No, but we still have each other. You can get through the sadness if you have your family."

Erika's quiet for so long that Mrs. Hahn thinks she's fallen asleep. And then, "Then why are we all alone here?"

Why indeed?

"Are you sleeping with Hahn?" Derek demands of Mark as soon as he scrubs out of his surgery.

Mark normally would have had a snappy comeback to that, but he remains quiet and knocks Derek's scrub cap off. "How'd the surgery go?"

"Why are you avoiding the question? When it comes to women, you never avoid the question. What's going on?"

"Nothing is going on. She's still playing hard to get," Mark replies, if only because it's true. "I don't know what's up with her."

"Some people just aren't attracted to you," Derek teases, and Mark scoffs. "Highly unlikely."

They meet Erica at the door and she gives them a crooked smile. "Let's get going. Today is a drinking day."

Derek asks, "Any particular reason why?"

She doesn't shift her eyes to him; he doesn't give any indication of what went on a few hours before.

"No. I just need alcohol."

Who doesn't?

They get a table and watch the residents droop over the bar while drinking girly drinks. She prefers either beer or straight vodka; he'll drink a beer just to stay safe. They sit with legs crossed sort of beside each other at the round table and say nothing. It's a comfortable nothing, though.

Derek wanders off to talk to Meredith and Erica speaks, her voice sort of meandering. "How is it that they can keep going on and on when their relationship is a jumbled mess?"

"Some people just like the afterglow of conflict, I guess. If you're always fighting, you always get the pleasure of making up."

She shifts her gaze to him. "You know something about that?"

"Yeah, I get that." His thoughts shift inexorably to Addison, but Erica's direct gaze shatters that memory.

He switches topics. "What did it mean?"

She knows what he's talking about, but decides to make him work for it. "Do you want to tell me what the hell you're talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about, Hahn." His voice is lower and less humor-filled and she blinks. "I would have thought you of all people know what casual sex is."

"Is that all?"

"That's all I was looking for at that time." She's brutally honest and he knows she likes it when he uses her last name. He decides to throw her for a loop.

"All joking aside, why can't you give this a chance, Erica?"

She blinks at her name and then her face closes.

"I don't see a future for this."

"You aren't looking hard enough."

Now her face darkens. "You know nothing about me."

"And you know nothing about me, although you think you do."

Her face curves into a wan smile. "Okay, okay. You're right. I have been a bitch."

He covers her hand with his own; he meets her gaze and then he leans forward to kiss her. Instead of pulling away, she lets him, even though it's in front of everyone, and he can taste the alcohol on her breath.

"Let's go."

At his place, he sheds her silky blouse; he runs his tongue over her skin and inhales her scent, and it's different than the on-call room – he takes charge and she lets him, until he lies with her in bed and goes to kiss her. Her face is turned to the side; she's got her eyes closed and there are tears on her cheeks.

Mark Sloan is not used to women crying in his bed. He rolls off her and lies beside her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and he nods. "What's wrong?"

She wouldn't tell him if his voice wasn't slightly sharp; he wouldn't have heard a word. She would have gotten up – she would have gone.

But she tells him. "I'm scared."

He rolls onto his side, looks her in the eyes. "Of what?"

She just shakes her head, but they know. All damaged people know. She's scared of getting too close, of losing someone else.

It's the after-effects. The aftershock – the little earthquakes that happen at inopportune moments. If she hadn't lost patients. If he hadn't been so patient. Maybe it wouldn't have come to this.

But she breaks – she lets him cuddle her and she lets him whisper in her hair, and then they fall asleep. And she stays.

Whatever happens after – and it's not going to be all right after this – they both know it. The afterglow of conflict is sweeter than a static relationship.

She's the sum of all of the parts of her. She's German American, she's a heart surgeon – she knows what makes the heart tick.

She knows how hearts break. And she knows what mends them.

He holds her hand in the hallways – they sleep in on-call rooms; their relationship is quiet and their working relationship is snarky.

But she doesn't have to say anything and he doesn't have to reply.

It's understanding. Two parts of a whole.

She's not alone, anymore.


End file.
